It's seedy London setting and sharp humour prefiguring Minder, which launched just six months later, this light-hearted ATV drama series centred on the exploits of the eponymous small-time crook first encountered in the 1975 thriller The Hanged Man.
The series finds Turtle and his accomplice, retired hooligan Razor Eddie, in accidental possession of a van containing eighty safe deposit boxes – the proceeds of a major bank raid. From top-secret documents to mysterious chemical formulae, the highly valuable contents are soon being sought by their former owners, with a new adventure unfolding as each box is opened. The lovable petty thieves may have a new source of income, but they also find themselves dodging the law, in the form of the relentless but continually thwarted Superintendent Rafferty, their fellow lawbreakers, and some altogether more sinister characters.

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Series Premiere

Turtle opens the first of the safe deposit boxes. Its owner is a crooked gentleman named Bullitt who runs a protection racket with publicans as his victims, and there is enough evidence in the box to put him away for several years. Turtle, who is very fond of publicans, plans to turn the tables on him.

Turtle and Eddie's next hoard contains, in Supt. Rafferty's words, "skeletons from cupboards, dynamite, and the dirt from under a lot of carpets." And they would rather not be in posession of a war-hero general's last will and testament - particularly when his throat-cutting ex-colour sergeant shows up...

Turtle and Eddie find themselves in posession of papers belonging to Al Shapiro, one of the most ruthless contract assassins in the business. With enough incriminating evidence to earn him life sentences in several countries, the pair are handling something more dangerous than dynamite!

Box number four is the property of one Ras Patel, a vicious property racketeer who is exploiting poverty-stricken Asian immigrants while running a highly corrupt empire in his native country. Turtle quickly sees an opportunity to perform a philanthropic deed - at no cost to himself.

Shocks for Turtle and Razor Eddie - Rafferty announces on television that he has one of the first real leads on the case of the missing deposit boxes: jewels belonging to the lovely socialite, Elspeth Partington-Jeffries. Then, Turtle learns that they are fakes...

Turtle and Eddie set out to bring a crooked casino owner to justice when the latest box is found to contain evidence of blackmail and computerised fraud. In doing so, they have the unconventional help of an ambitious senior Army officer - although their old enemy Rafferty is not far behind.

A new box is opened, revealing what seems to be hire-purchase agreements; £450 million worth, in fact. "Sounds like a lot of furniture", says Eddie. The men who drew up the agreements think so too. So does the CIA - and the deadly undercover man who stamped "Official Secrets Act" on them.

Season Premiere

The dishonest duo - now well on their way to wealth with their 'company', Guaranteed Securities Inc., and a luxurious office - open another box, to reveal the secrets of a planned horse-racing coup. Needless to say, they tip the odds in their own favour!

Continuing to make a shaky living from their haul, Turtle and Eddie encounter the profitable world of antiques - along with some very tough opposition in the form of Pierre Sablon, an international double-dealer with a plan to rig a forthcoming auction.

Another box is opened, containing a chemical formula and a packet of synthetic tea. While a large American company, along with its hired heavies, has more than a passing interest in the tea, Turtle and Eddie are more taken with a box of car registration documents.

A new box yields top-secret documents, the property of an eminent, recently deceased Russian diplomat. The papers turn out to be a very hot potato, sought by British military intelligence, the German secret police... and Supt. Rafferty.

Turtle and Eddie have to move their hoard of deposit boxes when a disgruntled informer, Hermann the Torch, puts the police on their trail - but some forged credit cards and a rigged computer send them on a pantechnicon-sized spending spree!

The pair find they need the help of more than their accountant when they are investigated by the Inland Revenue. Supt. Rafferty, meanwhile, is under mounting pressure to track down a particular deposit box - one belonging to the Comissioner's brother, Sir James Brent...